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From the debates sparked by the tragic shooting at Newtown, to the Capitol crasher to Dave Chappelle’s anti-Hartford act, lots of major stories this year stemmed back to Connecticut. Here is WTIC 1080’s look at the ten most discussed stories of the year.

At what point does someone alive or dead surrender their right to privacy? That was the discussion when it was revealed that a CT medical examiner employee was accused of letting her husband see the body of Newtown gunman Adam Lanza in the weeks following his massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The employee was placed on administrative leave back in January after the allegation surfaced, and like many aspects of this terrible shooting, the reasons behind what happened may never truly be understood.

Stamford’s Miriam Carey made national news when she attempted to breach the barrier of the White House in Washington, DC in early October. While Carey lost her life in the ensuing car chase, new information about her possible motives came to light after the event. Chief among this information was Carey’s post-partum depression, and that she had been fired from her job for improper use of a handicapped parking space. The added details painted a picture of who this woman was, and re-opened the debate on mental health treatment.

With so many stores open long hours on Thanksgiving Day, many felt this year’s Holiday was sidelined for the sake of more shopping. Early reaction to the extended retail hours was by and large negative, but Thanksgiving Day sales were up from predictions, begging the question– if nobody wanted stores open on Thanksgiving… Who was out shopping?

Noisy neighbors are, sadly, nothing new, but what about when that neighbor is a church? A Narragansett, RI man went to federal court in his attempt to silence the bells on the church near his home, which he claimed caused emotional distress for he and his now ex-wife. He asserted that the bells were one of the main reasons for their divorce, a statement that plenty of New Englanders had an opinion on since then.

It’s one of the oldest Summer Camp horror stories out there, but sometimes it does actually happen. A New York girl contracted Lyme Disease after attending a summer camp here in Connecticut, and her parents sued the camp for $41.7 million for failing and monitoring to protect their daughter. Whether their response was overkill, or simply parents doing all they could to help their child, the suit sparked a lot of debate since it broke in October.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on a terrible tragedy likethe Newtown shoting, but director Quentin Tarantino– whose ‘Django Unchained’ hiot theaters less than two weeks after the shooting– struck a chord when he stated that not only do movies not inspire real-world violence, but linking the two is disrespectful to the victims of these horrible acts. “I think it’s disrespectful to … the memory of the people who died to talk about movies,” Tarantino told NPR in January. “I think it’s totally disrespectful to their memory.”

When Tim Tebow was a free agent before the start of this NFL season, no one knew where he would end up. It was almost a BIG hike, as Mikhail Zaltsman, owner of the Moscow Black Storm in Russia, offered Tebow $1 Million for a two-game deal. The NFL star declined the offer quickly, hoping for one last chance to arise here at home.

It may take place in a galaxy far, far away, but production of a Star Wars toy by Enfield-based Lego was halted amidst a flurry of very current, very close-to-home criticism. The toy was based on the palace of Jabba the Hutt, the alien gangster from 1983’s Return of the Jedi, but the design and theme of the set was criticized as being anti-Muslim by several Muslim groups. The toy is indeed out of production now, but Lego claims it had nothing to do with the criticisms based on a 30-year-old movie.

Comedian Dave Chappelle was the intended headliner of the Oddball Comedy Festival, which came to the Comcast Theatre in Hartford this summer. But the night of levity was interrupted as Chappelle’s performance was inhibited by a rowdy audience, to whom Chappelle got very caustic, before slamming on the brakes and stopping the show dead in its tracks. The funnyman didn’t win many fans after the show, when he was quoted as saying “I don’t want anything bad to happen to the United States, but if North Korea ever drops a nuclear bomb on this country, I hope it lands in Hartford, Connecticut.”

The Starbucks in Newtown, CT was intended to be ground zero of a gun debate, as advocates on both sides of the issue planned to gather there in August. The coffee shop opted to close the store for the day out of respect to the community, a move that brought about equal responses of appreciation and anger from the would-be debaters.